Yahoo: Assad predicts disaster if West meddles in Syria

[visionary]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...googlenews_wsj

Syria's Leader Low on Cash—French Minister

PARIS—Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad's regime is running out of cash to face the insurgency in the country and France plans to discuss with Russia ways to reduce Syrian government funding, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Monday.

The Syrian government has enough money to hold out for only a few months without the support of Russia and Iran as the repression costs about €1 billion ($1.23 billion) a month, Mr. Fabius said in an ...

We've been told that for months and months now.
I'm still waiting for the government to collapse.
And anyway, Russia and Iran can and will just find other loopholes to go through.



http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/0...8JKB2F20120820

WRAPUP 4-U.N. monitors leave Syria, battles hit Damascus suburb

BEIRUT, Aug 20 (Reuters) - U.N. military observers departed Damascus on Monday after a four-month mission in which they became helpless spectators of Syria's conflict, and activists said government forces launched air strikes near the capital that killed two dozen people.

Helicopter gunships attacked Mouadamiya and Daraya, suburbs south of Damascus, activists and residents said, giving casualty tolls that could not be independently verified.

"It seems they suspected that there were rebels in the area," said an activist in Daraya, speaking on condition of anonymity. Gunships also appeared to hit targets in the western Damascus district of Kfar Souseh, a housewife said by phone.

Control of Mouadamiya has changed hands several times, as have many other places in a war with no clear front lines.

France, which like the United States and Britain, says it is supplying only non-lethal assistance to the Syrian opposition, ruled out providing arms in case they fell into the wrong hands.

Qatar and Saudi Arabia are among countries arming the rebels, French Foreign minister Laurent Fabius said, whereas European countries had imposed an arms embargo on Syria.

"As for heavy weapons, especially to destroy planes, there is a huge problem. We cannot deliver weapons in conditions where the people we deliver to later use them against us," said Fabius, who will host a foreign ministers meeting on Syria at the United Nations on Aug. 30.

http://blogs.aljazeera.com/liveblog/topic/syria-153

about 2 hours ago
There are reports that a Japanese journalist was killed in the Suleimaniyah neighbourhood on Aleppo, which has been the scene of fighting throughout the day. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says the journalist was injured and taken to a hospital; activists on the ground have told Al Jazeera that he or she died after arriving there.

No more details at this point.

https://twitter.com/DamascusSYR

BREAKING: FSA in Mezzeh area of Damascus downs a regime army helicopter, it was shelling the area. No further information.
6:47 AM

https://twitter.com/THE_47th

Sky News Ar quoting Mhd Hamza of the Syrian National Council saying body transferred to Damas from Moscow is of Maher. Who is Mhd. Hamza?
10:26 AM

Sad confirmed news: Abdallah Al Ahmar, 2nd most imp. Baathist & lifelong comrade of Hafez Assad was arrested while attempting to defect.
11:02 AM

Abdallah Al Ahmar was one of the 3 defectors I talked about earlier this week.
11:03 AM

Every single long-time believer in Baath has just received a proverbial kick in the balls. Regardless if Abdullah made it out or not.
11:16 AM

https://twitter.com/THE_47th

My source just told me that the body recieved from Moscow was of Air Force Intelligence Chief Jamil Hassan, not of Maher Assad.
12:06 PM

BREAKING | The high ranking military person who died in a Moscow hospital is of Jamil Hassan, Head of Air Force Intelligence Directorate.
12:07 PM

Directorate of Air Force Intelligence, Syria's most notorious mukhabarat agency, headed by Jamil Hassan, now KIA. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_For...ce_Directorate …
12:08 PM

This death IS HUGE >>>>>>> Jamil Hassan
12:14 PM

https://twitter.com/MajdArar

If Jamil Hasan death is true & he was in problem cell meeting, then those who's done it should be awarded the highest honer
12:41 PM

Jamil Hasan is ruthless killer, his Air Force Intelligence is the brutal branch that tortured to death Hamza Khatib & Ghiath Matar
12:44 PM

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?p...17848338242310

Aleppo: ten martyrs and tens wounded as a result of a shell landing on a residential building in Meissar neighborhood opposite to the market
2:01 PM

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?p...17848338242310

Daraa: Ilma: Heavy shelling of the town from the military compound to the east of the town
2:03 PM

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?p...17848338242310

Daraa: Khirbet Ghazaleh: Shelling by mortars from the military compound to the east of the town
2:04 PM

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?p...17848338242310

Idlib: Binnish: The town is subject to heavy air bombardment by helicopters
2:05 PM

[visionary]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/21/wo...&smid=tw-share

Obama Warns of Military Action on Syria Over Chemical Weapons

President Obama on Monday threatened military action against Syria if there was evidence that the government of President Bashar al-Assad was moving its stocks of chemical or biological weapons. It was Mr. Obama’s most direct warning of American intervention in Syria, where Mr. Assad’s military is fighting an 18-month-old rebellion.

We cannot have a situation in which chemical or biological weapons are falling into the hands of the wrong people,” Mr. Obama said in an impromptu appearance in the White House briefing room. “We have put together a range of contingency plans. We have communicated in no uncertain terms with every player in the region that that’s a red line for us.”

The president said he was deeply troubled by the possibility that the safekeeping of such weapons was now at risk in the Assad government’s increasingly harsh effort to crush the uprising. “That’s an issue that doesn’t just concern Syria,” Mr. Obama declared. “It concerns our close allies in the region, including Israel. It concerns us.”

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe...=MasterAccount

Deadly bombing strikes Turkey's southeast

At least eight people were killed and dozens wounded, including police officers, after a car bomb believed to have been planted by Kurdish fighters exploded close to a police station in the southeastern Turkish city of Gaziantep, a senior Turkish polician and security sources say.

"Unfortunately we lost eight citizens and nearly 60 people are getting treated at several hospitals according to our initial information," Erdal Ata, Gaziantep's governor, told reporters.

The powerful blast went off close to a police station, setting fire to several vehicles including a city bus carrying three of the victims, the mayor told local NTV news channel.

Al Jazeera's Stefanie Dekker, reporting from Antakya in Turkey's southeast, said the casualty toll was likely to rise.

"We are hearing of eight people dead and 50 injured. Most people who were hurt were in their cars or getting on buses near the scene of the explosion," Dekker said.

http://blogs.aljazeera.com/liveblog/topic/syria-153

about 3 hours ago
This video was reportedly shot just after a rocket or shell landed in the al-Mayassar district of Aleppo. You can see smoke and dust billowing in the street; about halfway through, a man with what looks like a bloodied shirt drives out on a motorcycle.

https://twitter.com/jfoleyjourno

activists saying more might been wounded, captured or killed, all rumors right now- Japanese rumored journalist killed http://blogs.aljazeera.com/topic/syr...-killed-aleppo
2:21 PM

https://twitter.com/MajdArar

My father was just informed; a worker in his factory with his son were killed in Daraya shelling. Damascus
2:29 PM

The father & son were rushing injured to field hospital, a shell landed & killed them instantly. RIP Abo Ahmad.
2:31 PM

https://twitter.com/WashingtonPoint

If any link established btw G.Antep bombings and d Syrian regime, this will only intensify Ankara's support to topple the Assad regime.
3:09 PM

It is the point of no return for Ankara re its Syria policies..There is no deterrence can be employed by Assad.He is accelerating his end
3:12 PM

Two well connected Syrian opposition figures told me today that there is a lot happening re NFZ/Safe Zone inside Syria last days..
3:24 PM

https://twitter.com/anitamcnaught

FSA is an umbrella term. Most opposition fighters have nothing to do with the HQ in Turkey - They're just local boys.
8:25 AM

And surprisingly few army defectors join the FSA.. Officers come to Turkey, but rank & file don't want to fight - they go home.
8:27 AM

It may have been a bad night for journalists in Syria Aleppo tonight. Reports starting to filter out are worrying us.
3:45 PM

We too are hearing that other journalists were killed tonight in Aleppo.
3:57 PM

https://twitter.com/Turk4Syria

At least 1 Japanese & 1 Turkish journalist have reportedly been killed in Aleppo.
3:52 PM

https://twitter.com/NuffSilence

@evanchill also, the FSA commander says, Al Hurra correspondent along with turkish cameraman were captured by regime.
4:15 PM

https://twitter.com/jfoleyjourno

tragic videos out there confirming death Japanese journalist #aleppo and body being moved over border
4:36 PM

https://twitter.com/HalaGorani

French FM slams Air France for diverting plane to Damascus wed. Says some passengers were "wanted by Syrian regime": http://bit.ly/MHtTk9
4:38 PM

https://twitter.com/oh_bergine

BREAKING LBC: A Lebanese female journalist among 3 journos lost in Aleppo
5:09 PM

Not sure if the Turkish and Lebanese journalists deaths have been confirmed.
The japanese journalist has been, and I've seen the video of her.
I've seen at least one report saying that all Lebanese journos in Syria are safe.
And it's possible that the killed Turkish journo was only one of the missing/captured group.


https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?p...17848338242310

Local Coordination Committees in Syria

The number of martyrs has risen to 140, the number includes 15 children and 5 women. There was 54 Martyrs in Damascus and its Suburbs most of whom are in Mouadamiyeh, Darya and Qaboun,25 in Aleppo most of whom died as a result of building collapsing in Meisser neighborhood, 20 in Daraa they include 4 from one family, 18 in Idlib including 4 died in Mouadamiyeh Al-Sham, 10 in Homs, 5 in Latakkia, 5 in Deir Ezzor and 3 in Hama
4:47 PM

[visionary]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...e9c_story.html

Syrian activists say pledges of U.S. communications aid are largely unfulfilled

“Our groups have not received anything from the U.S. side,” said Imad Eddin al-Rachid, a former assistant dean at the Islamic Law College in Damascus, who has met with Clinton and other high-level U.S. officials in Turkey in recent months.

More than a dozen Syrians directly involved in smuggling equipment said they have delivered hundreds of devices to groups in Aleppo, Damascus and other beleaguered cities but were unaware of any gear that had been provided by the United States.

Seeking to bolster its support to opposition groups, the State Department recently established a program to provide equipment and instruction to anti-Assad activists. But the program requires participants to travel to Istanbul for training before they are given any gear.

U.S. officials and Syrian nationals involved in the program said that it is slated to expand in the coming months but that fewer than two dozen laptop computers and satellite modem kits had been distributed so far.

U.S. officials acknowledged that the program, known as the Office of Syrian Opposition Support, only started work two months ago and had been hampered by bureaucratic and diplomatic delays. Among them, officials said, was concern by the Turkish government that OSOS could emerge as a rival to other Syrian groups or secretly be used to ship weapons into Syria.

U.S. officials said Syrian opposition groups may be unaware of how much gear came from the United States because it was largely distributed through nongovernmental organizations. The officials also suggested that activists may be unhappy with the amount they have gotten or convinced that rivals have gotten more.

Edgar Vasquez, a State Department spokesman, said the department had “provided more than 900 pieces of nonlethal equipment, mostly communications gear, to civilian activists and opposition groups.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/21/wo...w-nytimesworld

Life With Syria’s Rebels in a Cold and Cunning War

Mr. Yasin, 37, was a clean-shaven accountant before the war. He lived a quiet life with his wife and two young sons. Now thickly bearded and projecting a stoic calm under fire, he has been hardened by his war in ways he could not have foreseen.

He roams the Aleppo region with dozens of armed men in camouflage, plotting attacks with other commanders, evading airstrikes, meeting with smugglers and bombmakers to gather more weapons, and rotating through front-line duties in a gritty street-by-street urban campaign. He prefers to sleep by day, and fight by night.

His fighters are a cross section of a nation at war with itself. They include a real estate agent, several farmers, construction workers and a nurse who owned a short-order restaurant. These men fight side by side with a cadre of army defectors, who say the government they once served must fall.

The civilians started with stones and firearms bought for hunting. Their first more powerful weapon was a huge slingshot for hurling Molotov cocktails and small homemade bombs. As professional soldiers have joined them, they have gradually acquired assault rifles, machine guns and rocket-propelled and hand grenades. They now control a captured armored vehicle and two tanks.

http://cjchivers.com/post/2965284762...and-cell-phone

Machine gun in right hand. Cell phone in left. On duty on the gun-truck’s machine gun, at 80 miles an hour into Aleppo, checking messages along the way.

Even as the war in Syria rages, large areas of the countryside have cellular phone coverage, and the fighters are constantly checking their phones. When they stop, many of them immediately look for ways to recharge their phone batteries. And, often as they move and enter an area with a strong signal, they commence texting back and forth.

(Bryan and I are back from Aleppo and will be holed up tomorrow writing and editing. There is much to tell of this trip. But first we have to empty the notebooks and get the main story, slide show and video wrapped up. Then we will spend time here.)

http://blogs.aljazeera.com/liveblog/topic/syria-153

about 3 hours ago
The government says a Japanese journalist has been killed covering fighting in Syria.

Masaru Sato, a spokesman with the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo, says Mika Yamamoto was killed in Syria while reporting on the civil war there. Yamamoto was a journalist with Japan Press, an independent TV news service.

Sato said on Tuesday that Yamamoto's body has been transferred to Turkey, where Japanese consular officials were providing assistance.

He said Yamamoto was with a colleague from Japan Press when she was killed.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?p...17848338242310

Local Coordination Committees in Syria

LCC managed to document by the end of Monday 150 martyrs, the number includes 15 children and 5 women. There was 54 Martyrs in Damascus and its Suburbs most of whom are in Mouadamiyeh, Darya and Qaboun,35 in Aleppo most of whom died as a result of building collapsing in Meisser neighborhood, 20 in Daraa they include 4 from one family, 18 in Idlib including 4 died in Mouadamiyeh Al-Sham, 10 in Homs, 5 in Latakkia, 5 in Deir Ezzor and 3 in Hama6:38 PM

http://www.extremeskins.com/showthre...=1#post9046975
24,582 people killed so far in Syria

[visionary]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...87K09020120821

Kurdish militant group says not behind Turkey bomb

Kurdish separatists said on Tuesday they were not responsible for a car bomb that killed nine people in the southeastern town of Gaziantep near Turkey's border with Syria late on Monday.

"Our fighters have nothing to do with this explosion," Firat News, a website close to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group, cited the PKK as saying in a statement.

http://blogs.aljazeera.com/liveblog/topic/syria-153

about 4 hours ago
A Japanese woman journalist died of wounds sustained in a gunfight between Syrian forces and rebels in Aleppo on Tuesday, becoming the first Japanese national killed in the 17-month-old conflict.

Mika Yamamoto, a 45-year-old award-winning journalist working for Tokyo-based independent news wire Japan Press, was fatally wounded while travelling with the Free Syrian Army, a Japanese foreign ministry official said.

In a telephone interview with a Japanese TV news programme, fellow Japan Press reporter Kazutaka Sato, who was travelling with Yamamoto, said it appeared she was shot by government forces.

"We saw a group of people in camouflage fatigues coming toward us. They appeared to be government soldiers. They started random shooting. They were just 20, 30 metres away or even closer," said Sato.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the clash occurred in the Suleimaniya district of Aleppo, the scene of heavy fighting between government and rebel forces.

about 2 hours ago
At least 23 people were wounded in running clashes between pro- and anti-Assadregime supporters in Lebanon's second largest city of Tripoli, a security official said Tuesday.

Exchanges of gunfire erupted on Monday and continued through the night between the mainly Sunni district of Bab el-Tebbaneh and the largely Alawite area of Jabal Mohsen.

Several houses caught fire and cars were damaged in the fighting, which has added to fears that the conflict in Syria is increasingly spilling over into Lebanon, destablising the already fragile security situation.

The army, which responded Monday to the source of the gunfire, withdrew Tuesday from the aptly-named Syria Street, the symbolic "dividing line" between the rival Tripoli districts

https://twitter.com/martinchulov

Saw foreign jihadists at frontline in Aleppo. Fighters from Senegal, Saudi, Algeria & Pakistan. Others deep inside Salahedin. small numbers so far. Around 30 at frontline. Scores more have def crossed from Turkey. Not sure whre they are.
3:20 AM

Haven't had web access for 5 days. Tanks rounds crashring into suburbs near Salahedin. Scores/hundreds of residents fleeing
2:46 AM

Aleppo more foreboding than a week ago. Everything closed in east of city. Besieged & deserted.
2:51 AM

Jets taking heavy toll on FSA bases. As soon as they set up (in empty buildings) they get bombed from above
2:52 AM

Regime troops yet to enter rebel-held east Aleppo. They are in Salahedin tho where fighting close range & both sides trade insults
2:56 AM

https://twitter.com/DavidKenner

Amazing photos from Aleppo by @bdentonphoto. http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/201...=middleeast#11 …
4:54 AM

[visionary]

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middle...924677120.html

Heavy fighting as rebels claim Aleppo gains

Heavy shelling and clashes rage on across swathes of Syria's second city of Aleppo, as both the regime and rebels claim they are gaining ground in the key northern battleground.

At least 24 people are reported to have been killed nationwide, among them women and children in Aleppo, as the Syrian government presses its onslaught on rebel areas.

The rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) claimed on Tuesday that it controlled almost two-thirds of Aleppo, which has been battered by a month of air strikes, shelling and fighting.

"We now control more than 60 per cent of the city of Aleppo, and each day we take control of new districts," said Abdel Jabbar al-Okaidi, a colonel with the FSA. He went on to list some 30 districts which he claimed were under FSA control, including about half of the embattled neighbourhood of Salaheddin.

But a security source in Damascus rejected the claims, according to the AFP news agency, calling them "completely false".

"The terrorists are not advancing," the source said. "It is the army that is making slow progress. Terrorist groups occasionally come out of districts under their control and attack other districts to be able to then claim they have this or that street under their control."

Activists also reported that troops had stormed a town near Damascus, torching homes and shops, while helicopters and war planes strafed several suburbs of the capital, which the regime claimed to have largely recaptured last month.

The violence in Syria also continues to spill across the border into neighbouring Lebanon, where two people were killed and more than 60 wounded in clashes between Sunni Muslims and Alawites in the northern city of Tripoli.

http://blogs.aljazeera.com/liveblog/topic/syria-153

about 3 hours ago
The conflict in Syria has been dealing severe blows to the country's economy.

The government and the banks are running out of money, and a lack of fuel means everything else is grinding to a halt.

Al Jazeera's Anita McNaught reports on the economic crisis from northern city of Aleppo.

https://twitter.com/alihashem_tv

5 people were killed and 75 injured in the ongoing clashes in TripoliLB north Lebanon, 20 lebanese soldiers were also injured
12:13 PM

https://twitter.com/arwaCNN

spent the am in tripoli lebanon - intense gunfire around syria st that divides sunni & allawite areas
12:18 PM

gunfire still on going in tripoli - spoke to contact in sunni area says 2 more just died lebanon could hear heavy shooting in background
12:24 PM

https://twitter.com/AmalHanano

69 names of martyrs of Mouadmiyeh today: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...type=1&theater … …. Damascus
1:25 PM

https://twitter.com/AnonymousSyria

I am alive and OK
1:11 PM

No 3G or ADSL connections in Aleppo, but we have got a very slow GPRS connection today.
1:20 PM

https://twitter.com/DavidKenner

Alawite leader in Tripoli --> RT @Naharnet MTV: The army has encircled Rifaat Ali Eid's residence in Jabal Mohsen. http://www.naharnet.com/
1:30 PM

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?p...17848338242310

Local Coordination Committees in Syria

Number of martyrs in Syria has risen to 152 thus far; including women and children. 93 martyrs were reported in Damascus and it's suburbs; most of them in Moaudameyh, 19 in Daraa; most of them in Hrak, 19 in Aleppo, 12 in Deir Ezzor; including an entire family from Mohemdieh, 5 in Homs, 2 in Lattakia, 1 in Idlib, and 1 in Hama
12:05 PM

[visionary]

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/n...adan-eid-assad

Holidays in Syria

MARA, Aleppo – On the last day of Eid al-Fitr, the celebration that marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, this town awoke not to the call to prayer, but to the sound of a falling rocket.

Everyone's doors and windows rattled, and shrapnel rained down outside. For this village on the edge of Aleppo, Syria's second-largest city and the scene of the regime's latest offensive against rebel forces, bombardments like this occur almost daily.

After the first explosion, Rafah al-Huseni, 29, rushed to opened the doors and windows. Her mother darted back from the outside toilet, adjusting her clothes as she ran. Her hands shook as she removed debris from her hair.

“We must open the doors and windows or they will blow apart in the explosion,” said al-Huseni, who is 3 months pregnant. She is a veteran of air raids, having lived in the embattled city of Homs for most of the Syrian revolution.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/22/wo...orld&seid=auto

Doctor Group Is Treating Syrian Rebels and Civilians

Working in a converted villa in a town in the Syrian north, an international team of doctors and nurses has been quietly treating Syrian opposition fighters and civilians for the past two months, Doctors Without Borders announced in Paris on Tuesday.

The seven-person team, working in conjunction with a group of Syrian doctors, represents one of the precious few aid groups that have entered Syria and established operations since the conflict began last year. Doctors Without Borders informed the Syrian government of its work shortly after arriving in the country, in secret, but was not authorized to stay.

“They’re aware of our presence,” said Olivier Falhun, a Paris official at Doctors Without Borders, known in French as Médecins Sans Frontières. But the government has indicated that the group’s work will be conducted “at our risks and perils,” Mr. Falhun said. The location of the field hospital has been kept secret.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2...o-syrian-isps/

Syria sidesteps sanctions by turning to China for Internet bandwidth

Censorship and government monitoring aren’t the only problems facing Syrian Internet users. There have been frequent, recent shutdowns of all Internet traffic crossing the Syrian border over the last few months, accompanying dramatic changes in how the country connects to the rest of the world. With growing international diplomatic pressure and sanctions against Syria, the Syria Telecommunications Establishment (which controls the country’s Internet infrastructure) has increasingly taken its network business somewhere it’s wanted: China. But despite sanctions, some Syrian ISPs still maintain a presence in the US, with the largest hosting its home page on a server in Chicago.

In April, the Obama administration announced sanctions against Syriatel, the Syrian telecommunications company, for its role in "tracking and targeting citizens for violence." Syriatel owns SAWA, Syria’s largest ISP. While that’s prevented US telecommunications companies such as Cogent and Level 3 from doing business with SAWA, it hasn’t stopped the Syrian company from using some US Internet services.

http://www.nowlebanon.com/NewsArticl...10&MID=0&PID=0

War by rape

The Syrian regime is reportedly using rape as a tool of war against opposition forces. Human rights monitors have documented cases of sexual violence perpetrated by regime security forces against both men and women, however, first-person testimonies have been hard to come by. NOW sat down with a Syrian refugee in Lebanon who asked to be called Shero and who claims that he and his friend Meshaal were raped by regime forces.

The two young men are activist from the Monastery of Saint Moses the Abyssinian, a monastic community of Syriac Catholics north of Damascus. They worked closely with Father Paolo Dall’ Oglio, the Roman Catholic priest who was recently expelled from Syria for criticizing the regime’s violence.

https://twitter.com/AnonymousSyria

As for the shells, last one fell 30-40 meters away from where I live on Sunday night. Aleppo
9:22 PM

@Austin_Tice didn't tweet since Aug 12nd!
9:24 PM

I want to go to Turkey, but I'm not sure how to get out of Aleppo and I'm facing difficulties finding an apartment there for $300-$400/month
9:29 PM

https://twitter.com/BigAlBrand

Mom's asking me about today's casualties. Now we're both crying. **** you Assad.
9:38 PM

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?p...17848338242310

Local Coordination Committees in Syria:

LCC was able to document by the end of Tuesday 230 martyrs, including women and children. 104 in Damascus and its suburbs (mostly in Mudamieh Sham during regime shelling), 42 in Aleppo most of them in Aqyoul neighborhood,32 in Daraa most of them in Herak and including 5 bodies in Nawa, 12 in Deir Ezzor (including an entire family from Mohamiedeh), 10 in Homs, 5 in Idlib. 3 in Hama, and 2 in Lattakia
5:47 PM

http://www.extremeskins.com/showthre...=1#post9046975
24,812 people killed so far in Syria

[visionary]

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middle...218818879.html

Syria resumes shelling on Damascus districts

The Syrian army has deployed tanks on a ring road surrounding Damascus and shelled southern neighbourhoods where rebels operate, the heaviest bombardment in the capital since the army reasserted control last month, residents and activists said.

At least 40 people were killed in the shelling, which was accompanied by attacks from helicopters, and in ensuing ground raids on the Kfar Souseh, Daraya, Qadam and Nahr Aisha neighbourhoods, they said.

"The whole of Damascus is shaking with the sound of shelling," a woman in Kfar Souseh said.

She said the army's artillery was also firing on the capital from the Qasioun and Saraya mountains overlooking Damascus. The assaults in the capital coincide with the departure of the United Nations observer mission, whose members are leaving after failing to secure a ceasefire.

Maaz al-Shami, a member of the Damascus Media Office, a group of young opposition activists monitoring the crackdown in Damascus, said rebels who had left the city during a fierce army campaign last month had started to return.

"They went back to their homes, or disappeared in the green belt surrounding Damascus," Shami said.

"They are back now, and the regime is responding with daily shelling and helicopter bombardment. A war atmosphere in Damascus is setting in."

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middle...040588686.html

Lebanese rivals continue battles over Syria

The death toll from fighting between rival pro- and anti-Damascus gunmen in the city of Tripoli has climbed to at least 10, in clashes that the city's residents described as some of the heaviest since Lebanon's civil war.

More than 100 people have been wounded in the fighting which erupted this week along a sectarian fault line between the Sunni district of Bab al-Tabbaneh and the Alawite area of Jebel Mohsen.

Al Jazeera's James Bays, reporting in Tripoli on Wednesday, said the city's mayor had convened a crisis meeting to try to negotiate an end to the fighting but that no solution had been reached.

Prime Minister Najib Mikati, a native of Tripoli, on Wednesday raised fresh concern at "efforts to drag Lebanon more and more into the conflict in Syria when what is required is for leaders to cooperate ... to protect Lebanon from the danger."

The authorities have instructed the army and security forces "to bring the situation under control, to prohibit any armed presence and to arrest those implicated" in the violence, he said in a statement.

Later an army statement said: "Due to the gravity of the situation and in order to prevent attempts of dragging the whole of Lebanon into a state of unrest... the army command announces it will enter into dialogue with the city's leaders and officials, particularly in Bab al-Tebbaneh and Jabal Mohsen."

http://blogs.aljazeera.com/liveblog/topic/syria-153

about 3 hours ago
The son of a late Chechen field commander who waged two post-Soviet wars against Russian forces has been killed while fighting with the rebels in Syria, a Russian Islamist website said Wednesday.

Rustam Gelayev, son of Ruslan Gelayev, "entered into a battle with superior forces of the Alawite regime in a Syrian district, presumably between August 11 and August 13," the KavkazCenter website said.

"During the fighting, he was martyred," said the website, which is regularly used by Russian-based Islamic militants to exchange information and has developed a history of providing accurate battlefield reports.

about 2 hours ago
Syrian government forces fought rebels on Wednesday for control of a military base and an airfield near the southeastern town of Al Bukamal on the Iraqi border, a local Iraqi official and a Syrian rebel commander said.

"There is fierce fighting between the Free Syrian Army and Syrian border guards to control the base, where tanks and artillery were used to bombard (Al Bukamal)," Farhan Ftiakhan, mayor of the nearby Iraqi town of Qaim, told Reuters.

"Most Al Bukamal areas are in the hands of the Free Syrian Army, but the Syrian regular army is deployed and controlling the areas just outside Al Bukamal," he said by telephone.

A rebel commander said they now controlled the town, which sits on a supply route from Iraq, where many Sunni tribes sympathise with those fighting Assad's forces.

The commander, known as Abu Khalid, told Reuters by satellite telephone that the Syrian army now only held the military base and the area around it.

Opposition sources said on Tuesday Syrian state forces had abandoned two security compounds in Al Bukamal that had been run by the Air Force Intelligence and Political Security agencies.

Al Bukamal lies 120km southeast of the city of Deir Az Zor, capital of a Sunni province with strong family and clan connections to Iraq's Sunni heartland in Anbar province.

24 minutes ago
At least 12 people have been killed - as pro- and anti-Assad camps take aim at each other in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli.
Old rivalries have been reignited and there is considerable tensions between the two communities - it's being described as the worst since Lebanon's civil war.

Al Jazeera's James Bays has sent in this report from Tripoli:

https://twitter.com/MahirZeynalov

Four Syrian colonels, two captains are among 1,425 Syrians who crossed into Turkey this morning.
4:27 AM

Iran says Gaziantep blast that killed nine Turkish civilians not surprising given Ankara's Syria policies http://bit.ly/ReCDPp
6:22 AM

The Syrian conflict has really done a lot to push Turkey and Iran apart.
It's interesting how much at odds they are these days.
A few years back Turkey was passionately courting Iran.


https://twitter.com/SyrianSmurf

The FSA in Damascus captures a regime sniper who has killed 15 people in Barzeh, Qaboon, and Midan. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCYcH...ature=youtu.be
8:08 AM

The FSA in Ariha Idlib have stopped the regime forces from entering the city and destroyed 6 tanks in the process!!
9:26 AM

They were shelling the city [Idlib] this morning...concentrating on the northern villages. There was also some shooting last night.
9:29 AM

https://twitter.com/jfoleyjourno

a civilian leader in BustanalQser said worried increasing problem of Warlordism amongst disparate katibas and commanders Aleppo
11:11 AM

I've been wondering about that myself.



https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?p...17848338242310

Local Coordination Committees in Syria

The number of martyrs in Syria has risen to 80 so far. 50 martyrs were reported in Damascus and its Suburbs; including 25, who were executed in the field in Kafar Souseh, 10 in Homs, 7 in Idlib, 5 in Daraa, 4 in Aleppo, 2 in Hama, 1 in Hasakeh, and 1 in Lattakia
10:19 AM

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?p...17848338242310

Local Coordination Committees in Syria

The number of martyrs in Syria today has risen to 110 thus far. 70 martyrs were reported in Damascus and its Suburbs; including 25 who were field-executed in Kafar Souseh and another 25 who were also field-executed in Qaboun, 11 in Homs, 7 in Idlib, 5 in Daraa, 5 in Aleppo, 2 in Hama, 1 in Hasakeh, 1 in Deir Ezzor and 1 in Lattakia
11:38 AM

[visionary]

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middle...040588686.html

Lebanese rivals continue battles over Syria

The death toll from fighting between rival pro- and anti-Damascus gunmen in the city of Tripoli has climbed to at least 12, in clashes that the city's residents described as some of the heaviest since Lebanon's civil war.

More than 100 people have been wounded in the fighting which erupted this week along a sectarian fault line between the Sunni district of Bab al-Tabbaneh and the Alawite area of Jebel Mohsen.

Al Jazeera's James Bays, reporting in Tripoli on Wednesday, said the city's mayor had convened a crisis meeting to try to negotiate an end to the fighting but that no solution had been reached.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...ce=twitterfeed

Assad influence in Lebanon declining as Syrian civil war shakes Beirut’s ties with Damascus

The Syrian civil war has spilled over into Lebanon, bringing with it sectarian street clashes, mob violence and general government paralysis in Beirut.

But it was the dramatic arrest earlier this month of a former Lebanese government minister and prominent supporter of Syria’s embattled president that has suggested the conflict may be causing Lebanon to slip further away from Damascus’ long domination.

The bloodshed in Syria has drawn Lebanon deeper into the unrest — a troubling sign for a country that has gone through its own 15-year civil war and has an explosive sectarian mix as well as deep divisions between pro- and anti-Syrian factions, many of which are armed.

The chaos could give Sunni Muslim fighters in northern Lebanon more leeway to establish supply lines to the rebels inside Syria in their battle to oust President Bashar Assad.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article...oovu6c.twitter

The Air War in Aleppo

Even now, though, it is possible to walk through the border gates between Turkey and Syria, get your passport stamped by a grinning rebel at an immigration post, and hitch a ride south in the back of a truck. It may not be luxurious, but it is a far cry from the illegal and dangerous hike across the Turkish frontier that many reporters and activists were previously forced to take to enter Syria.

Syrian rebels have largely cleared regime troops from the area between the Turkish border and Aleppo, the country's economic hub and largest city. Abdul Nasser al-Khatib, a rebel commander in the newly formed al-Tawhid ("Unity") Brigade, an organization of rebel groups around Aleppo, claimed that opposition forces hold an approximately 125- by 25-mile area in the north.

"We have made our buffer zone," said Khatib, a burly former interior decorator. Roads snaking through the rich, dark brown farmland of northern Syria are devoid of regime checkpoints. There are even a few Free Syrian Army (FSA) checkpoints. Free from a threat in the countryside, the rebels have moved almost all their fighters to the city of Aleppo, where battles are still raging.

Suddenly, we were there. A regime jet, probably an L-39 Albatros, screamed low overhead as rebels who were already engaged in battle fired on it with two truck-mounted Dushka guns. A fighter firing one of the weapons, a Soviet-era heavy machine gun, watched open-mouthed as the plane darted overhead. His truck sped down the street after it, but it was already out of range. Absent extraordinary luck, the rebels' weapons were simply incapable of downing the jet.

Before the rebels from Sha'ar neighborhood reached the roundabout, the Albatros came back around and seemed to locate them. They ducked into a house just before it fired a rocket. The explosion reverberated down the street, hitting about three houses down.

The rebels pushed into a stairwell in the house and listened to instructions from a commander. The neighborhood had been abandoned. The plane was hitting the streets around us with machine guns and rockets. The rebels seemed to be only too happy under direct attack from the plane. I was not. German photographer Daniel Etter and I -- after some yelling at a rebel who clearly preferred to stay and, somehow, continue forward -- ran back out into the street with two rebels and began to retreat, leaving the others behind.

It was in this slow procession up the dirt street -- the fighter plane swooping overhead and a buzzing helicopter apparently acting as its target spotter -- that I fully understood the frustration faced by Syria's rebels. Was Assad not an international criminal? Was it not clear, from everything the rebels had accomplished with so little international support, that the regime would not last? The status quo the Assad regime had long upheld in the Middle East was over. With more advanced weaponry, the rebels could better protect innocent lives. Including mine.

But while the Syrian military's use of air power temporarily delayed the rebels' advance in the city of Aleppo, jets and helicopters alone are not capable of reversing the regime's losses. It would take more than 24 hours, but the rebels would seize back the roundabout, after an all-night battle against tanks. The next day, planes, which did not attack at night, once again returned to harass the rebels. But they were not accompanied by regime troops.

Khatib, the rebel commander from al-Tawhid, said that that even if they did not procure better anti-aircraft weapons, the rebels would continue the same strategy against the regime.

"Bashar al-Assad, he will give up Syria. Before he gives up Syria, he will destroy Syria," he said. "He knows the FSA will destroy most of his army. But he can kill people ... sleeping at home, by fighter jets

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2012/...of-tawhid.html

The Lions of Tawhid

The Times’s C.J. Chivers travels with an antigovernment fighting group in and near Aleppo, where the war for Syria’s future has hardened all involved.

https://twitter.com/KareemLailah

Assad forces assassinated journalist Mosaab Aoudallah in his house in Damascus. pic.twitter.com/z6JaLBW4
8:24 AM

https://twitter.com/THE_47th

Syria Support Group MT @mannoush: FSA commanders to request NoFlyZone &declare safe zones from int. community http://bit.ly/PUE5Ho
5:44 PM

Uncnfirmd reports: Forces roaming various streets of Deraa w/ loudspeakers: "hand us Al Sharaa now, or we'll level this city over ur heads"
5:54 PM

Not sure about other reports, but 1 thing's for sure: Deraa has been getting pounded like crazy for a week now.
6:00 PM

During shelling breaks, Assad Forces grab a quick summary-execution tours in Deraa city and then out & back to shelling.
6:02 PM

https://twitter.com/DamascusSYR

People of Jordanian towns near Syria'n border reported to a local Jordanian news website that shelling on Daraa is VERY heavy now.
6:18 PM

https://twitter.com/edwardedark

oh btw, I'm still alive in case anyone was wondering... thanks for all your messages of concern. much appreciated, they mean a lot. I'm in Aleppo, haven't left. we had mobile phones cut off for a week and internet cut for about 10. only internet via mobile now
11:26 AM

last week, 3 shells landed near Russian consulate in an upscale part of Aleppo which hasn't seen fighting. 1 hit a house & exploded 2 didn't. the army shelled Aleppo University for no apparent reason. maybe it was aimed at the dorms housing displaced for revenge?
11:36 AM

some FSA are good, but unfortunately many are not. lots f criminals and extremists among them too.
they also looted medicine and food produce warehouses belonging to the health ministry in Aleppo
12:02 PM

regime forces completely looted the luxury Carlton hotel in front of the Citadel as well as the entire Khan el Shouneh souk (market) Aleppo
6:14 PM

FSA mortars have hit houses in Jamilieh after targeting Military Police HQ, & houses in Shiek Maksoud after targeting PKK checkpoint -Aleppo
6:25 PM

https://twitter.com/hhassan140

Al Ahram: two senior figures of Syria regime will announce their defection within the next few hours. via Al Jazeera
2:42 AM

https://twitter.com/THE_47th

If u or ur family is in Damascus, stock up & stay at home & try to avoid going out as much as possible. All chatter is abt mjr escalations.
2:48 AM

https://twitter.com/NMSyria

Apparently the FSA in Aleppo had a military parade with tanks and armored vehicles they captured. Anyone have a video?
2:52 AM

https://twitter.com/AnonymousSyria

Moscow evacuates naval base in Syria http://goo.gl/YSx1m Tartus
2:53 AM

http://www.lccsyria.org/9962

The Local Coordination Committees in Syria (LCC) was able to document 184 martyrs on Wednesday. 100 martyrs were reported in Damascus and its suburbs, including 46 executed in Qaboun, 25 executed in Kafar Souseh, and 7 eecuted in Nahr Aisha; 25 martyrs were reported in Idlib; 22 in Homs; 17 in Daraa; 11 in Aleppo; 4 in Hama; 3 in Deir Ezzor; 1 in Hasakeh; and 1 in Lattakia

http://www.extremeskins.com/showthre...=1#post9046975
24,996 people killed so far in Syria

[visionary]

http://brown-moses.blogspot.co.uk/20...deen-news.html

Syrian Activists Claim Al Mayadeen News Tweets FSA Positions To The Syrian Air Force

Interesting look at MB influence and limits in Syria
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...ion?CMP=twt_gu

Syrians are torn between a despotic regime and a stagnant opposition

http://www.enduringamerica.com/home/...ttle.html#1430

1601 GMT: Syria. The Guardian has spoken to a resident of Damascus and reports that 11 more people may have been executed by the regime in Kafer Souseh, adding evidence to my earlier assessment that this may be the new pattern, at least in Damascus:

As usual today started with shelling, mortar shelling , tank shelling and helicopter shelling in several areas in Damascus and Damascus suburbs ...

Today it [Kafr Sousseh] was targeted with shelling, also a raid of the neighbourhood. Military and Shabiha (pro-Assad militia) raided the neighbourhood and started looking for activists, all kinds of activists, civil activists, media activists. Unfortunately, today 11 people were killed in Kafr Sousseh in extra-judicial executions ...They are being killed and executed on the ground in front of their families ...

We are witnessing an escalation here in the number of casualties. So many people are dying under shelling, in extra-judicial executions .....

http://blogs.aljazeera.com/liveblog

about 7 hours ago
Syrian forces backed by tanks stormed Daraya, on the outskirts of Damascus, on Thursday after 24 hours of artillery and helicopter bombardment to drive out rebels, opposition sources said.

The bombardment killed at least 15 people and wounded 150 in Daraya, situated on the southwest edge of Damascus, the sources said.

Troops were conducting house to house raids in the conservative Sunni Muslim town and making their way to the town's centre, meeting light resistance from rebels who appear to have largely withdrawn from the area, activists in Damascus said.

about 3 hours ago
We told you earlier of reports that Syrian military planes have crossed into Iraq during a strike against the border town of Abu Kamal, which was taken by Syrian rebel forces last month.

Iraqi border guards now say the combat aircraft crossed into Iraqi airspace for about fifteen minutes, and that they were reportedly targeting the part of Abu Kamal that lies within Syrian territory.

But the mayor of the town of Qaim which is across the border from Abu Kamal, denies the aircraft crossed into Iraqi territory.

about 3 hours ago
The neighbourhood of Seif El Dawla in Aleppo seems to be witness to some heavy clashes.

Reuters provides with these two shots, showing smoke rising over the city's buildings in the course of fighting between government forces and rebels:

about 3 hours ago
Short of weapons and ammunition, Syrian rebels have set up factories producing a wide array of homemade bombs and grenades that they can take into battle against much
better-armed government forces.

Reuters reports:

"Bomb, bomb, bomb!"shouted the rebel fighters in the midst of battle on the streets of Aleppo. Everyone crouched down and held their fingers in their ears. But the rusty foot-long metal container they rolled into a building hiding enemy Syrian army forces failed to explode.

"The batteries were dead and it didn't work," said Abu Furad, a rebel commander in aviator sunglasses, who still wears the Syrian army uniform he was issued before he defected to the rebel cause three months ago.

Abu Furad had another homemade explosive device in the pocket of his vest - a black metal tube with a small ceramic coffee cup attached to the top by a wire. The cup acts as a trigger like the pin of a grenade.

about an hour ago

In the town of Harrak on the Syrian-Jordanian border women and children were fleeing what they say was a Syrian government bombing campaign.

https://twitter.com/NMSyria

Damascus: Six bodies found in area between Daraya and Moadamiyet, among them a mother, her four children, and an unidentified young man.
3:12 AM

You know what, I don't even know what to say anymore. Another massacre in Tadamon, Damascus this morning in Syria. **** humanity.
3:13 AM

Bodies of those killed in massacre in Tadamon, Damascus piled one over each other in the back of a truck.
3:14 AM

https://twitter.com/MajdArar

This is the 5th day of the battle around Mazeh airport including the areas of Daraya, Moadamia, Kafarsouseh & NahrIsha Damascu. Assad army is waging a big battle to secure the surrounding of Mazeh airport & bombing towns around it like Daraya & Moadamia
4:29 AM

Mazah airport is strategically very important for Assad to control Damascus & maintain the flow of ammunition supplies.
4:30 AM

Mazah airport is the headquarter of the well known Air force Intelligence, the branch responsible 4 bulk of repression in Syria
4:32 AM

FSA controls the lands around Mazeh airport along with Daraya, Moadamia & south of Kafarsouseh
4:34 AM

FSA has been targeting the airport with mortar shells for the past 4 days. Assad tanks moved in to secure the airport.
4:36 AM

https://twitter.com/MahirZeynalov

3 Syrian colonels, 4 lt. colonels, 2 majors, 2 captains, 2 lieutenants, 2 soldiers were among 923 Syrians who crossed into Turkey today.
11:37 AM

https://twitter.com/MajdArar

Technically, the Assad army is trying to invade & take control of a vast area of woods & bushes between multiple towns. Damascus
4:52 AM

We're maybe at the doors of Damascus battle round 2. Let's hope it will give Assad a good blow.
4:55 AM

I guess regime is back to square one in Damascus, Helicopters in the sky which means they've been hit badly on the ground.
12:05 PM

I hear the artillery shell cracking in the air above my head, I go to window & just minutes I see where it lands.
12:29 PM

NahrIsha & Qadam are just being wiped out by shells. Damascus
12:30 PM

https://twitter.com/NMSyria

Syrian battlefield just wouldn't be complete without tea kettle and cups in corner. via @MidaniSpeaks. http://pic.twitter.com/1RFySxY9
12:57 PM

BREAKING: Explosion in Mujtahed, Central Damascus near Midan. Helicopters reported flying overhead. Tanks heading to an unknown location.
12:57 PM

https://twitter.com/SyrianSmurf

It hurts so much looking at these pictures of my people sleeping in the streets...little children, entire families...homeless in seconds...
1:13 PM

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pi...17848338242310

Local Coordination Committees in Syria

Number of martyrs has risen to 125 thus far, including children and women, 66 martyrs were reported in Damascus and it's suburbs including "21 in Modamieh, 15 in Daraya, 10 in Kafarsoseh and 6 in Barzeh,17 in Aleppo, 13 in Daraa,9 in Deir Ezzo, 7 in Homs, 5 in Hama, 5 in Idlib, 2 in Safeta in Tartous and 1 in Hasakeh
11:08 AM

[visionary]

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/08/2...st-austin.html

Whereabouts of journalist Austin Tice, McClatchy contributor, unknown in Syria

Austin Tice, a freelance American journalist who has contributed to McClatchy, The Washington Post and other media outlets from Syria, has been incommunicado for more than a week, his whereabouts unknown since exchanging email with a colleague.

Tice, a Georgetown University law student who served as U.S. Marine Corps infantry officer before leaving active duty in January, was one of the few foreign journalists to report from inside Syria as the civil war intensified. He entered the country in May and traveled extensively through central Syria, filing battlefield dispatches before arriving in Damascus in late July.

Tice’s reporting earned him a 2,000-strong following on Twitter, where fans of his work noted his disappearance when he stopped tweeting after Aug. 11 – when he’d recounted spending his 31st birthday listening to Taylor Swift music with rebel fighters from the Free Syrian Army.

His subsequent silence didn’t raise immediate alarm because he’d planned to leave that week, on a journey to the border that often takes days because of the fighting en route. The Damascus suburb where he was last known to have been has faced heavy bombardment in recent days, making communications difficult.

Tice was well aware of the dangers of reporting in Syria, and even took to his Facebook page to beseech his friends and relatives to “please quit telling me to be safe.” He then launched into an impassioned defense of his presence in Syria, which he acknowledged was “in the middle of a brutal and still uncertain civil war.” However, he continued, he found inspiration from the Syrians he encountered.

“I’m living, in a place, at a time and with a people where life means more than anywhere I’ve ever been – because every single day people here lay down their own (lives) for the sake of others,” Tice wrote. “Coming here to Syria is the greatest thing I’ve ever done, and it’s the greatest feeling of my life.”

An article/essay he wrote about being in Syria:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...010_story.html

We kill ourselves every day with McDonald’s and alcohol and a thousand other drugs, but we’ve lost the sense that there actually are things out there worth dying for.

We’ve given away our freedoms piecemeal to robber barons, but we’re too complacent to do much but criticize those few who try to point out the obvious. Americans have lost their sense of vision, mistaking asinine partisan squabbles for principles. When we do venture into space – the part of space we’ve gotten comfortable with, mind you – now we pay the Russians to give us a ride. That’s humiliating. I can’t believe we let that happen.

So that’s why I came here to Syria, and it’s why I like being here now, right now, right in the middle of a brutal and still uncertain civil war. Every person in this country fighting for their freedom wakes up every day and goes to sleep every night with the knowledge that death could visit them at any moment. They accept that reality as the price of freedom. They realize there are things worth fighting for, and instead of sitting around wringing their hands about it, or asking their lawyer to file an injunction about it, they’re out there just doing it.

And yeah most of them have little idea what they’re doing when they pick up a rifle, and yes there are many other things I could complain about, but really who cares. They’re alive in a way that almost no Americans today even know how to be. They live with greater passion and dream with greater ambition because they are not afraid of death.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012...mment-17866406

Earlier today, the Associated Press reported that Syrian rebels had captured a string of security posts and the local police headquarters in Albu Kamal, near the border with Iraq, despite heavy government shelling and airstrikes by warplanes.

Our colleague Mona Mahmood has now spoken via Skype with Abu Ahmed, a member of the Syrian Revolution Council in in Albu Kamal. This is what he told her:

Yesterday, the first shooting by MiG 21 started against Albu Kamal. The shooting was random as the FSA are not centered at any place. The FSA liberated the crossing point [to Iraq] and the checkpoints and went away. They are conducting here a guerilla war and do not want to commit the same mistake they made in Aleppo.

The mistake in Aleppo was that when the FSA got control of one of the districts, they based themselves there. Now, they do not want to do that in Albu Kamal. There are 15 [army] checkpoints in Albu Kamal – 12 of them were liberated and other three are still waiting.

The three checkpoints which are not liberated yet have the biggest number of Syrian forces in men and equipment. All the Syrian army who were at the 12 liberated checkpoints are now gathered at these three checkpoints.

The biggest checkpoint is near the military airport in al-Hamdan district. It is 4km north-west of the centre of Albu Kamal behind al-Sukkariya village. There are more than 37 tanks at the airport, 10 armoured vehicles, some of the tanks are T-52 and T-62. There are six officers, one of them is an Alawite general, and the other five officers are Druze.

Most of the security officers here are Druze – we don't know why. The FSA have arrested some of them, but soon afterwards they were released to encourage them not to work for the regime. The population of Albu Kamal is 250,000 people. Ninety per cent of the families have Iraqi origins – from al-Anbar province. Even their accent is Iraqi. The countryside is inhabited by Iraqi tribes too. There are a few Kurd families and about 30 Alawite families. There are 30 Christian families too....

https://twitter.com/evanchill

Freelance journalist @austin_tice, a good man, has been missing in Syria for more than a week. http://ow.ly/dbIoX
4:36 PM

https://twitter.com/DavidKenner

Austin Tice, a brave reporter, is missing in Syria - last heard from around Damascus. Be in touch if you have any news. http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...425_story.html
4:25 PM

Last email from Austin stated his intent to get drinks in Beirut, invitation to join: "I'm told it's socially preferable not to do so alone"
4:39 PM

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?p...17848338242310

Local Coordination Committees in Syria

Number of martyrs has risen to 200 thus far, including children and women, 96 martyrs were reported in Damascus and it's suburbs including "21 in Modamieh, 15 in Daraya, 10 in Kafarsoseh and 6 in Barzeh,37 in Aleppo, 21 in Daraa,14 in Deir Ezzor, 13 in Idlib including 5 children,11 in Homs, 5 in Hama, 2 in Safeta in Tartous and 1 in Hasakeh
4:32 PM

[visionary]

http://www.theworld.org/2012/08/syri...ctor-in-limbo/

Syrian Alawite Defector in Limbo

In a crowded café in the Turkish city of Antakya, Omar phones his brother in Syria to see if anything has changed in their family’s situation. Omar can only speak to his brother in hushed tones and code words.

“They are under the eyes of the regime because of me,” he said. “Every move, they are watching my family, every move, every step.”

Omar, who asked that we not use his real name to protect his family, is an Alawite Syrian from a village outside Latakia in the northwest. The area is well known as a bastion of support for President Bashar al-Assad, who largely draws from the Alawite community for his security forces and inner circle.

As an Alawite, Omar would be considered a natural supporter of Assad’s regime. But about seven months ago, Omar fled Syria and joined the rebels, making his way to Turkey. He said he felt his community had been taken hostage, forced to support Assad against the rest of their countrymen.

“They just kidnapped the Alawite community, and they are pushing them to fight this civil war,” Omar said.

He acknowledges that his case is unusual. Only a handful of Alawites openly support the rebellion. He’s paid a price for his support. His Alawite community now shuns him, but so do some of the rebels who say they can never fully trust him.

http://blogs.aljazeera.com/liveblog/topic/syria-153

about 6 hours ago
France signaled Thursday that it was prepared to take part in enforcing a partial no-fly zone over Syria, piling pressure on President Bashar Assad's embattled regime as it widens a major offensive against rebels in Damascus and surrounding areas.

French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian urged the international community to consider backing a no-fly zone over parts of Syria, but cautioned that closing the Arab nation's entire air space would be tantamount to "going to war" and require a willing international coalition that does not yet exist.
- Associated Press

about an hour ago
As the battle for Aleppo closes in on the historical centre in northern Syria, heritage sites in one of the world's oldest cities are being damaged and experts fear the worst is yet to come.

In Bab al-Nasr neighbourhood, a Free Syrian Army rebel pointed to a gaping hole in the base of the delicately chiseled minaret of the 700-year-old Mahmandar mosque.

about an hour ago
A young Sunni sheikh has been killed in the north Lebanon city of Tripoli early Friday as new clashes erupted between pro- and anti-Syrian factions dashing a tenuous truce, an AFP correspondent reported.

Sheikh Khaled al-Baradei, 28, was killed when fierce fighting broke out at dawn between residents of the anti-Syrian Sunni Muslim Qobbeh district and the neighbouring pro-Damascus Alawite district of Jabal Mohsen, the correspondent said.

The exchanges of rocket-propelled grenade and rocket fire sparked large fires in the two neighbourhoods in the east of the Mediterranean port city, Lebanon's second largest.

https://twitter.com/RulaAmin

Syrian filmmaker Orwa Nyrabia arrested as he was trying to leave syria via Damascus airport, family lost all contact w\him at airport
12:27 AM

Renewed clashes in Tripoli between Jabal Muhsin and Bab Attabaneh districts lebanon
12:29 AM

3 people killed already during clashes in tripoli since midnight
2:08 AM

https://twitter.com/baysontheroad

TRIPOLI army deployed across city. I can see smoke on skyline. Gunfire close to where I am.
3:16 AM

TRIPOLI Just spoke to commander in Bab al Tabaneh he says they will fight on for as long as it takes.
5:05 AM

TRIPOLI two members of media injured - sniper rounds - where satellite dishes were parked.
5:40 AM

https://twitter.com/MahirZeynalov

1 Syrian general, 2 colonels, 3 lt. colonels, 1 major, 2 captains, 2 lieutenants, 60 soldiers among 1,247 Syrians who fled to Turkey today.
3:10 AM

Total number of defected Syrian generals in Turkey is 33 while total number of refugees in Turkey is 77,730 as of today.
3:17 AM

3,626 Syrians crossed into Turkey in the past 24 hours, including 1 general, 24 high-ranking army officers and 62 soldiers.
5:16 AM

https://twitter.com/SyrianSmurf

Alrawda mosque in Maarat Al-Nouman destroyed by shelling. Idlib http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-xR_...ature=youtu.be … 4th mosque in the city to be destroyed past 3 months
4:49 AM

Clashes are still on-going in Ariha between the FSA and regime forces. Idlib
4:51 AM

MASSACRE in Kansafra JabalAlzawiyah due to MiG shelling. 10s of martyrs. Idlib
5:02 AM

As of now there are 10 martyrs in Kansafra and the bodies are still being found underneath the rubble. Houses of several floors...reduced to pebbles... Kansafra Idlib
5:08 AM

Suqoor Alsham brigade destroy a regime tank in Ariha Idlib just now in Sina`a neighborhood.
5:36 AM

https://twitter.com/LeShaque

Ranking army officers defect, remain in Syria, join FSA-JLC. Refreshing to see them stay, most go to Turkey | http://youtu.be/zkNkQCXWD30
5:11 AM

http://www.extremeskins.com/showthre...=1#post9046975
25,196 people killed so far in Syria

[visionary]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...8610SH20120824

Fierce fighting in Syria swells refugee exodus

Turkey alone now hosts more than 78,000 Syrian refugees, according to its Disaster and Emergency Management Directorate, a sharp rise on the 44,000 registered there at the end of July.

Ankara, saying it will not be able to accommodate more than 100,000 refugees, has suggested that the United Nations set up a safe haven inside Syria to staunch the outflow.

The chances of gaining a U.N. Security Council mandate for such a safe haven, which would require military protection, are close to zero, given the rejection by veto-wielding powers Russia and China of any outside intervention in Syria.

French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on France 24 television on Thursday that an "international coalition" of Western nations and allies could consider setting up a limited no-fly zone over part of Syria without such a mandate.

"The scenario mentioned by (U.S. Secretary of State) Hillary Clinton of a particular zone where there could be a banned area is something that needs to be studied," said Le Drian, the first senior French official to air the possibility of action by an "international coalition," rather than the United Nations.

On Tuesday, Russia warned the West against taking any unilateral action in Syria, after President Barack Obama threatened "enormous consequences" if Assad used Syria's chemical or biological weapons.

France chairs a meeting of U.N. Security Council foreign ministers in New York next week which it has said will focus on humanitarian solutions for Syrians caught up in the conflict.

Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said he had invited Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan to attend the conference, given the number of refugees and fears of the conflict spreading.

https://twitter.com/MajdArar

FSA has secured an escape route for some of my relatives in Daraya, they speak of horrors going on there.
2:07 PM

https://twitter.com/SyrianSmurf

A 4 story building in Mayadeen DeirEzzor collapses after MiG shells hit it directly. Martyr count estimated to be at 60 as a result.
7:13 AM

40 Shibeeha killed in Ariha Idlib by the FSA. One tank has also been destroyed and a high ranking officer captured.
7:41 AM

Iraqi forces fired at Syrians trying to rescue the injured by crossing the border. via @LccSy https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?p...17848338242310
2:36 PM

For the second time in 24 hours, shells from the Syrian regime have fallen in the Iraqi city of Alqaem.
2:55 PM

Regime sniper sniped by the FSA in Zamalka Damascus.
3:12 PM

Tripoli, Lebanon

https://twitter.com/alihashem_tv

Bullets can be heard around tripoli, tension is high after a man was killed by a sniper in Jabal Mohsen this evening
3:10 PM

This comes after 24 hours of tension following the death of a Sunni field commander from Tabaneh by a sniper
3:14 PM

Fighters from Altabbaneh Sunni neighbourhood told me earlier that all what they seek is revenge for Sheikh Khaled who was killed yesterday
3:17 PM

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?p...17848338242310

Local Coordination Committees in Syria

Number of martyrs has risen to 170, including more than 25 children, 45 martyrs were reported in Damascus and its suburbs most of them in Daraya, 45 in Deir Ezzor "most of them in Mayaden", 25 in Daraa,20 in Idlib,15 in Aleppo, 10 in Hama, 5 in Lattakia, 3 in Homs and 2 in Qunaitra
2:12 PM

[visionary]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...8JO4I620120824

COLUMN: Trying to have it both ways in Syria

Amid the daily reports of clashes and killings in Syria, a subtler message is emerging: America is increasingly irrelevant.

Inside Syria, opposition fighters complain that the United States is doing little to help them, according to intrepid reporting by correspondents for Reuters, the New York Times and Foreign Affairs. Instead, funds and arms from Qatar and Saudi Arabia are turning jihadists into a growing presence. Among international observers, Washington is seen as insignificant.

"On the ground, really, this administration has been essentially irrelevant, locked into its own perpetual debate on what to say and what to do," said Peter Harling, Syria analyst for the International Crisis Group. "I think generally this administration in the Arab Spring has spent a huge amount of time trying to analyze events instead of shaping them."

Those comments, of course, may thrill many Americans -- and White House staffers. In the wake of Iraq and Afghanistan, Americans want nothing more than to get out of the Middle East. One of Obama's primary pitches to voters this year is that he gets America out of foreign entanglements, not into them.

There are ways, though, to aid the Syrian opposition without becoming militarily entangled. One of the many tragedies of the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan is that they distort our views of how we can have influence in the region. Our options go far beyond whether to bomb or not to bomb.

http://blogs.aljazeera.com/liveblog/topic/syria-153

about 6 hours ago
Mitt Romney says he's willing to send US troops to Syria if needed to prevent the spread of chemical weapons.

The Republican presidential contender has told CBS News that the United States must take "whatever action is necessary" to ensure weapons of mass destruction don't fall into the wrong hands.

Romney says that may require ground troops or action by US allies such as Turkey
or Saudi Arabia.

about 2 hours ago
Security forces in Syria have arrested a filmmaker and an actor who helped people made homeless or jobless by government forces, their friends said on Friday.

Arwa Nairabiya - who founded the "Damascus Dox Box" documentary film festival - was arrested at Damascus airport on Thursday evening before boarding a plane to Cairo, fellow
filmmakers and relatives said.

Secret police agents also raided the home of Mohammad Omar Oso, an actor who had starred in several popular television series, and took him to an unknown destination, the Damascus Media Centre activists' group said in a statement.

about an hour ago
The colleague of a Japanese journalist killed in Syria held a news conference on Saturday after the repatriation of her body.

Mika Yamamoto was reportedly killed on Monday by government forces in Aleppo - becoming the fifth foreign journalist to die in the country since the uprising began 17-months ago.

After an 11-hour flight from Istanbul, the coffin of Yamamoto was unloaded from a Turkish Airlines aircraft as its pilot and crew saluted her and Narita airport officials observed a moment of silence.

Yamamoto's two sisters as well as her colleague, Kazutaka Sato, were also aboard the flight. Sato spoke to journalists following his arrival.

"We'll hold a wake, and then the funeral. Beyond that, I just can't think at all," he said.

https://twitter.com/jenanmoussa

Wife of missing alhurranews reporter in Syria says he's alive, shot in shoulder, in Shabiha custody http://ow.ly/dcN1c
10:40 PM

https://twitter.com/SyrianSmurf

New battalion belonging to the Alhaq brigade in Idlib suburbs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zZO...layer_embedded
1:08 AM

https://twitter.com/NMSyria

Two hours before the massacre in Douma - this little boy was having the time of his life protesting. pic.twitter.com/EQTxMMwt
2:15 AM

Children at a protest in Douma in Damascus - two hours before massacre that claimed more than dozen lives. pic.twitter.com/cJ7eVjGa
2:16 AM

This is what happened right after the protest. A river of blood, the purest of blood. Douma pic.twitter.com/j8Cp5uPw
2:17 AM

https://twitter.com/NMSyria

Reports of the first defection of a Syrian Army field commander. Commander of the Seventh Division of army has arrived in Jordan.
3:21 AM

https://twitter.com/ahmed

Do we know anything about the Canadian journalist Maria Moore who got injured in Tripoli, Lebanon? Like who did she work for?
3:38 AM

https://twitter.com/MajdArar

FSA withdrawn from Daraya, it goes without saying that summary executions & vandalism will follow.
4:05 AM

https://twitter.com/THE_47th

Lebanese media reporting the kidnapping of a Kuwaiti & a Qatari national.
4:55 AM

It turns out only a Kuwaiti was kidnapped in Lebanon, but he was driving a Qatari car (hence the confusion).
5:11 AM

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?p...17848338242310

Local Coordination Committees in Syria

Number of martyrs has risen to 206, including more than 25 children, 55 martyrs were reported in Damascus and its suburbs most of them in Daraya, 45 in Deir Ezzor "most of them in Mayaden" ,30 in Aleppo, 30 in Daraa, 26 in Idlib, 10 in Hama,5 in Lattakia,3 in Homs and 2 in Qunaitra
7:49 PM

http://www.extremeskins.com/showthre...=1#post9046975
25,402 people killed so far in Syria

[visionary]

Al Jazeera English headline:
http://www.aljazeera.com/

TURKEY SAYS IT WILL OPEN SEVEN NEW CAMPS TO ACCOMODATE INFLUX OF SYRIAN REFUGEES, BUT WARNS IT IS NEAR LIMIT AS NUMBER CLIMBS ABOVE 80,000 PEOPLE

I wonder if any of those camps are going to be in Syria.

But seriously, where are they going to put them?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/25/wo...nt&tntemail1=y

Torrent of Syrian Refugees Strains Aid Effort and Region

International relief agencies reported an alarming increase in Syrian refugees on Friday, shattering calculations made by the United Nations and spreading fears that the violence in Syria is creating a broader humanitarian crisis that could further destabilize the Middle East.

Reports by the United Nations refugee relief agency, combined with accounts by officials and workers in refugee camps, provided new evidence that the emergency relief efforts undertaken so far are inadequate and have underestimated the needs of the refugee population.

The swelling numbers of Syrians have caused many new stresses in Syria’s neighbors. Turkey is struggling to accommodate overcrowded camps and said it has nearly reached its limit. The Lebanese and Jordanian Armies are increasingly confining refugees to inhospitable border areas with bare-bones accommodations. Schools near the Syrian border in Iraq, a country still recovering from war, are overflowing with refugees even as local children are preparing to return to class.

Many refugees are younger than 18, including unaccompanied children. Saba Mobaslat, director of Save the Children’s Jordan office, described a windswept, nearly barren area of desert near the Syrian border as a “children’s camp.” Each night this week, the number of people fleeing into Jordan almost quadrupled, compared with last week, she said.

As of Friday, the United Nations refugee agency said, 202,512 refugees had been registered in Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey, with more than 30,000 new arrivals tallied in the past seven days alone. The agency had anticipated a total of 185,000 registered refugees by the end of this year. Israel, which is in a technical state of war with Syria, has not taken any refugees.

Those are only official numbers. The real numbers of refugees are much much higher.


http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middle...237209782.html

Al Jazeera's Sue Turton, reporting from Turkish side of the border in Antakya, said that "it seems like the numbers are growing ever bigger".

"The flow (of refugees) is increasing, which is really worrying the Turkish authorities," said Turton, adding that the reason behind this increase is likely the up tick in the aerial bombardments carried out by the Syrian army.

"Many of these families are coming up from towns that have been bombed, moving up to the next town north, towards Turkey, hoping to be able to set up some sort of safe haven there - stay with families or friends. But tjhey're being bombed there and being pushed up further and further, and their numbers are just increasing as they get closer to Turkey."

http://blogs.aljazeera.com/liveblog/topic/syria-153

about 3 hours ago
Syria's second-city of Aleppo is bearing the scars of more than two months of attacks by government warplanes, tanks and heavy artillery as the army battles to dislodge rebels who claim to control 60 per cent of the northern metropolis.

At least 200,000 people have fled the city since late July when the increasingly bloody conflict spread to Aleppo, a once thriving manufacturing and commercial hub where war has now left a trail of destruction, with bombed out buildings and shuttered shops.

Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr reports on Aleppo's residents accusing the government of indiscriminate attacks that have destroyed many lives.

about an hour ago
Syrian rebels free 1 of 11 Lebanese Shia pilgrims held in Syria. The group was taken in May and little has been heard from them since.

about an hour ago
The AFP brings us some images from Aleppo, where fighting has been heavy and unrelenting:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/world...ria_08-23.html

U.N. Monitors Exit Syria, Failing to Stop Bloodshed

MARGARET WARNER: And what about ordinary civilians? Did you get any sense of how they're coping with this?

GHAITH ABDUL-AHAD: Pretty horrible for the local civilians.

At the front lines, you see these skirmishes taking place. You see snipers shooting in the middle of the street. And then in the middle of that street, you see a civilian carrying two plastic bags walking, trying to retrieve their -- whatever left in their houses. It's very, very heavy on the civilians.

MARGARET WARNER: And did you feel in danger? Were you in danger?

GHAITH ABDUL-AHAD: I mean, of course. It is a front-line situation and you have people -- it was pretty intense.

You meet people in the morning, you see them over breakfast, and then the end of the day, they're dead. I spent the night with a commander. We had dinner one night. The next day, we had tea. And then at the end of that day, he was dead. It was very, very intense.

As I said, I haven't seen such an intense fighting since the days of Iraq. You know, you're standing in there in the street corner, and then a jet fighter would pass over you and drops a bomb 50, 100 meters away. So it was a very, very difficult situation.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rss/medi...0823_syria.mp3


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1829970.html

Syria Conflict: Rebels Set Free One Kidnapped Lebanese

Syrian rebels on Saturday freed one of 11 Lebanese Shiite pilgrims they have been holding for three months, in a move aimed at easing cross-border tensions after a wave of abductions of Syrian citizens in Lebanon.

Hussein Ali Omar, 60, appeared healthy in an interview aired on Qatar's Al-Jazeera TV as he crossed into Turkey after his release, urging the Lebanese and Arabs to support the Syrian people in the midst of their country's escalating civil war.

Omar later arrived in Beirut, the Lebanese capital, aboard a private Turkish jet.

"Our treatment (by the Syrian captors) was excellent and the Lebanese (hostages) are well," said Omar, wearing a white shirt and a red tie bearing an image of the Turkish flag. "I am wearing it in recognition of Turkey's efforts to free me," he said of the tie.

Turkey's Foreign Ministry said Ankara would continue to try to win the freedom of the rest of the hostages.

https://twitter.com/olireports

Hundreds of thousands of civilians remain in Aleppo Syria despite constant bombardment from the air and artillery.
9:22 AM

Markets in Aleppo still open. When a fighter jet or helicopter drops a bomb, people scatter, then return to shopping.
9:23 AM

Shelling in Aleppo not just at front line. All areas held by rebels are being bombed. Each street has rubble from blasted buildings.
10:18 AM

Saw a helicopter drop a bomb on an Aleppo district. It must have been the size of a dustbin.
10:23 AM

What is happening to Aleppo is the reason why NATO said it intervened in Libya. Aerial bomb attacks against a civilian population.
10:32 AM

https://twitter.com/SyrianSmurf#

New FSA company belonging to Suqoor Alsham formed in Maarat Al-Nouman Idlib https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBaF...layer_embedded …
7:56 AM

Tank belonging to Suqoor Alsham shells a Large regime checkpoint in JabalAlzawiyah Idlib https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a0J...layer_embedded …
8:45 AM

73 martyrs reported in Daraya Damascus. [After the FSA reportedly was forced to pull out out of there yesterday.]
10:50 AM

Lots of clashes today in Idlib city...hopefully they will able to finally gain some ground there.
10:55 AM

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?p...17848338242310

Local Coordination Committees in Syria

The number of martyrs in Syria has risen to 111 so far, including many women and children. 88 martyrs were reported in Damascus and its Suburbs; most of them were martyred in the massacre in Daraya, 14 in Deir Ezzor, 5 in Daraa, 2 in Aleppo, 1 in Idlib, and 1 in Hama
11:47 AM

[visionary]

http://blogs.aljazeera.com/liveblog/topic/syria-153

about 3 hours ago
Reuters has images from the village of Hazano in Syria's Idlib province, showing what residents sifting through the ruble of their homes after aerial raids did grave damage to their village:

https://twitter.com/WashingtonPoint

Back to Syria.. This time Idlib... Been around Idlib for three days, there is almost no internet anywhere around Idlib.
12:04 PM

Things differ from bad to worse around Syria.. Though as the world focuses Aleppo, Idlib's misery go unnoticed
12:09 PM

Couldnt reach inside AREHA. It has been under siege for 6 days.. W/FSA, we attempted to deliver some bread but failed
12:24 PM

I stayed near Idlib for two days.. Surrounding cities were being shelled from 7 am until evenings.. with helicopters and MIGs.. unbearable. FSA, just like half Aleppo and its north, Idlib too, controls from Jabal alZawya to the Turkish border.
12:31 PM

In Binnish, 40 km from the Turkish border, one wedding saloon owner changed its place to slaughterhouse bcs noone marries anymore
12:26 PM

https://twitter.com/jfoleyjourno

big massacres going on in damascus countryside, but almost no journos have access to them
6:11 AM

saw at least 8 wounded children and one killed in hospital aleppo over last few days, bodies full shrapnel- artillery and plane shelling
2:59 PM

https://twitter.com/THE_47th

Instead of focusing on fringe extremist elements in the FSA, maybe focus on the system that fostered them. U know? The one we want down.
4:52 PM

Genius of Homs: fighters use what they have, connect a .500 machine gun to a Playstation gamepad http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPsVW10S0F0 … /via @freeCritic2000
5:15 PM

https://twitter.com/Reuters

SYRIAN ACTIVISTS SAY 122 MORE BODIES, 13 WOMEN, FOUND IN DAMASCUS SUBURB OF DARAYA AFTER ARMY HOUSE-TO-HOUSE RAIDS, BRINGS TOTAL TO OVER 200
5:20 PM

https://twitter.com/tweets4peace

Urgent: Damascus suburbs: Daraya: After regime forces backed with sectarian armed shabeeha thugs stormed the area today. They raided homes/summarily executed entire families. Number of martyrs [recovered] has risen to 220 in Daraya alone for today. Daraya: 74 names identified thus far. 19 women have been confirmed and there are dozens of children.
5:39 PM

https://twitter.com/MES0_88

We lost 300 syrians today! 300! Not birds or cats or dogs or trees! they are sons, daughters,dad's and mom's! WAKE UP DAMNED WORLD!
5:46 PM

https://twitter.com/THE_47th

Activists are still digging out bodies from the rubble & empty houses "visited" by Assad forces in Daraya. These numbers are only initial.
5:47 PM

https://twitter.com/MajdArar

We're sick of world ignorance, we're sick of hypocrisy, we may now rest in peace & die without noise.
5:48 PM

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?p...17848338242310

The Local Coordination Committees in Syria:

The Local Coordination Committees was able to document 330 martyrs by the end of the day on Saturday in Syria; this number includes women and children. 212 martyrs were reported in Damascus and its suburbs (most of them in the Daraya massacre). 39 martyrs were reported in ALeppo; 28 in Deir Ezzor; 23 in Idlib; 15 in Daraa; 9 in Hama; and 4 in Homs5:34 PM

I'm seeing reports that the number of people killed just in Daraya has gone up to 300.
Maybe that's including other days? I hope.

Even if the death toll stays where it is now, 1,150 people have been killed over the past 5 days, and 1,470 over the past week.